


Spontaneous Eldritch Subway

by BarefootWanderer



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Positive Cecilos Fic Drive, Tiny bit of Angst, spoilers for "subway"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1398175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootWanderer/pseuds/BarefootWanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil rides the subway, and then comes home again.  It's nice that he has something to come home to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spontaneous Eldritch Subway

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago and posted it to my tumblr, but never actually put it here, so if this looks familiar, it's because you've seen it before. Figured this was as good a time as any (and better than some) to finally get it over here. Enjoy! Feel free to shoot comments, questions, criticism, and prompts at me! http://www.tumblr.com/blog/shoelesswanderer

Cecil sat. It was quiet in the noisy, impersonal way that subways are always quiet, which is to say that no one spoke, and the screams of fear or anguish were dutifully ignored. 

Cecil was pleased that he would be able to report that in that respect, at least, this subway was like others he had heard about. It was a bit… impersonal for his taste, though. Of course, everyone had a right to be dead-eyed and defeated-looking if they felt the need, but it might be nice if someone would meet his eyes for a moment. He wanted to interview the other riders about their experiences on the subway. Were they making good time? Where were they going? Was the DNA-stripping process more or less soul-rending than rush hour on route 800? He was here for the purposes of Journalism after all! 

He looked around hopefully again, but no one looked likely to volunteer an interview, so he took out his pen and notebook and resolved to sit back and enjoy the ride, recording his observations as best he could.

They stopped after a few minutes, and Cecil looked up to see a dozen or so people enter the car, while half of that number exited. He looked for a map and found that it was directly behind him. Tracing with a long finger, he found the stop near the radio station. His train seemed to be heading toward the hub in the heart of the city. There were several dozen stops before then- more than was likely or even possible. Cecil frowned and then shrugged. There was nothing else to be done at this point. He sat back and waited.

And waited. He caught himself doodling on the paper he had taken out. It was nice to be able to sit quietly for a bit. To breathe. Things had been so hectic lately that a few minutes of down time might do him good. 

It seemed to Cecil that it was nearly a quarter of an hour before the train stopped again, disgorging a traumatized-looking group of travelers and taking on some more. He returned to his doodles, idly dragging the pencil across the page and thinking that it would be nice to have Carlos next to him- a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, might make this trip less draining. Cecil realized he was beginning to feel tired, and curling up with the man who had his heart seemed like the nicest plan. But he was stuck in the subway, for better or worse, determined to find out what lay at the hub at the center of Night Vale.

Minutes had stretched to hours before the train stopped again, and by that time Cecil barely cared who came or went. The Spirit of Journalistic Inquiry was a noble ideal, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about it just then. Slowly, as if moving through molasses, he turned to look again at the map behind him. It was subtly different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, not through the growing haze in his brain, but it seemed there were more stops on the map. Or… fewer? Or had they simply moved? Regardless, they were still nowhere near his destination. He sat.

The train stopped. The train moved. The faces around him changed, but the expressions were always the same. Blank, slightly sad. Through the fog in his head, Cecil noticed that at each stop the passengers grew slightly more fearful. More angry. Their sorrow deepened. He wondered what each of them was thinking about, where each of them had been going or coming from when they made the fateful decision to step onto the subway. Someone screamed, and then fell silent.

He had been coming from work, and the thing he wanted most in the world, had wanted for ages, was to see Carlos again. He wanted to slip his hands into the broader, more callused hands of the scientist he loved so dearly and leave them there for days, weeks- for as long as he had been away from the dark eyes and perfect hair.

Weeks later, the train stopped again. Cecil saw a face that was familiar, but slightly, subtly wrong, and he couldn’t remember who it belonged to.

Some time after that he ran out of paper. The last several pages, covered slowly over, what was it… three months? Were covered only in Carlos’ name, over and over again. There was even a rough sketch that utterly failed to do the scientist justice. But then, his face was beginning to fade from Cecil’s mind.

How long had it been since he’d seen Carlos? How long had he been sitting here in the harsh chemical light of the train, watching people come and go? Did it even matter any more? As far as anyone in Night Vale knew, Cecil had dropped off the face of the planet a little over a year ago, at his best guess. What were the odds that Carlos had waited for him in that year? Their relationship hadn’t been serious by any means- it had never had a chance. Carlos might have moved on. Carlos might have been lured into the Dog Park. Carlos might have left.

A moan of fear and anguish rose up in Cecil as he realized that he might never again see the man he loved, might never be able to say the things he had tried so desperately to make Carlos understand during all his radio broadcasts. The crushing knowledge that Cecil had never made his feeling really clear- that Carlos would never, ever know just what he had meant to the radio host- was too much for him, and he began to cry.

He cried for days. He cried until his shirt was wet and his nose was numb and all he could do was think that he had lost Carlos. There was no way around that. There would be no fixing it. Cecil was alone again and he would die alone as everyone always did and then-

And then the train stopped. A voice came over the loudspeaker, speaking a language that Cecil had never heard. He listened to the impossible syllables that crawled and slithered from a mouth that sounded like it had too many lips, and sniffled. He looked out the window.

Void.

Stars. Or maybe neon. But, lights.

The train started moving again, in the other direction. It was taking him home, back to Night Vale Radio. And maybe, just maybe back to Carlos.

As they got closer to his stop, on a trip that was still unbelievably long, but shorter than the route there, Cecil felt a weight lift from him. He dried his face with a handkerchief he had forgotten he was carrying. He straightened up, looked at the map, and found that they were making good time. Surprisingly good. He managed a small smile, feeling as though he had been washed clean, as if a spring rain had fallen on him and him alone. He was going home.

 

Carlos had turned the radio on to listen to Cecil’s show while he worked. He listened with distracted interest, busy otherwise. Then Cecil’s voice came, loud and clear “I myself must go investigate.” 

Carlos dropped the beaker he had been cleaning and swore loudly. Of all the stupid things for that man to do, getting on a spontaneous eldritch subway was one of the worst. He cleaned up the glass during the weather report and sat, anxiously listening, waiting for the voice of the man he loved to return.

The voice did come back. Carlos sagged in relief. Cecil was alright. He sounded fine, happy even. But then, “It took years, Night Vale. Years.”

Carlos swore again and hurried to find his shoes.

He got in the car and drove to the radio station. It would take Cecil half an hour or so to close up after the show was finished, and Carlos was determined to meet him there. He parked his car next to the one he knew was Cecil’s and perched on the hood. 

He had sounded fine. Cecil was fine. But… years? Carlos knew he should have stayed for the rest of the broadcast, but he was to anxious to meet his partner as soon as possible, as much for Cecil’s sake as his. Years. In a subway. What would that do to a person? Would Cecil even want to see him? He checked his watch. The broadcast was over, had been over for some time, Cecil should be out any minute...

The door opened. Cecil walked out, turned to lock up, and walked toward his car. He caught sight of Carlos and stopped dead.

“Hi,” said Carlos, more nervous than was reasonable, jumping off of the car. “I- I thought you might want a ride home.”

“Yeah,” said Cecil quietly. “Yeah, that would be…” he trailed off. Carlos saw him sag a little. He couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or relief, or something else entirely, but he bridged the distance in two strides and pulled his Cecil into an embrace.

Cecil buried his head in the scientist’s shoulder and murmured his name over and over again. “Carlos…Carlos. Oh, how I missed you.” Abruptly he straightened and pulled Carlos into a kiss, more brusquely than he would have liked. He tried to apologize as gently as he could, moving softly but insistently against the other man.

Carlos only stepped back when he realized Cecil’s face was wet. “You’re crying, Cec,” he said gently.

“What? Oh! Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just-” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “I didn’t think I’d get another chance to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It felt like years. It was years. You could have left, or died, or found someone else, or god only knows what, and I come back and you’re here and everything’s okay.” He pressed a palm against Carlos’ cheek. “You’re okay. And you came to get me.”

Carlos stepped forward, enfolding Cecil in a hug. “Wasn’t sure you were getting out of there,” he said roughly, murmuring into the other man’s hair. “Wanted to make sure you were alright. That was… kinda stupid of you.”

Cecil pulled back to meet his eyes, hefting his notebook between them. “For science?” he said hopefully.


End file.
